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The Awakened
USA 2012
produced by Juan F. Gonzalez, Lou Simon, Andrew Feldman (executive) for Blue Nile Pictures
directed by Douglas Villalba, Lou Simon
starring Stephanie Pitts, Nikolas Holmes, Jonathan 'Legacy' Perez, John J Thomassen, Nancy Sayegh, Julie Kendall, Harry Marsh, Wil J. Jackson, Saphie Gonzalez, Paul Castronovo, Juan F. Gonzalez, Lou Simon
story by Juan F. Gonzalez, Lou Simon, screenplay by Lou Simon, music by Michael Damon
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Miami, Florida is to be hit by a category three storm, so Manny
(Jonathan 'Legacy' Perez) decides to invite a handful of his friends to a
hurricane party to his totally fortified house. But the party is doomed
from the beginning because of the choice of guests alone. Sure, Kevin
(John J Thomassen) might by Manny's best friend, but Manny also tries to
get into Kevin's girlfriend Laura's (Nancy Sayegh) panties, as they
actually had drunken sex once before. Laura has brought her best friend
Gina (Stephanie Pitts), who suffers from all kinds of anxieties and
asthma, and has left all her medication in her car. And Gina's boyfriend
Charlie (Nikolas Holmes) is just a total bore. To lift the spirits a bit
(pun inevitable), the quintet try to recreate a healing seance Laura has
told them about ... and somehow they really pull some spirits back from
the next world, phantoms that hide in the dark to frighten the
heebiegeebies out of them at the least appropriate moments before they
kill one after the othre, starting with Laura and Kevin. The others soon
realize they are caught in a dead trap: They can't go out or the hurricane
will get them, but if they stay inside, the spirits might - and since they
refuse to believe in spirits, it's not long before Charlie and Manny
accuse each others of the murders. But of course, the truth is much more
gruesome ...
Not only considering The Awakened is confined to merely one
location, this is a pretty exciting movie, basically because it gets all
the key elements right: It features a bunch of interesting and likeable if
flawed characters (who are all above cannonfodder status), it does focus
on the scares rather than giving its spooks another one of these
forgettable and clichéed backstories, it features enough plottwists to
keep the story interesting from beginning to end, and the directorial
effort is intelligent enough to get the most out of the movie's limited
locations yet subtle enough to concentrate on the narrative rather than
hit the audience over the head with an overkill of flashy images.
Recommended,
actually!
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